'Turn in the weather': Dry, hot start to summer points to fire season ramping up

Australia is heading for a relatively hot and dry start to summer as key climate drivers combine to raise the fire threat in many parts of the country.

The odds point to about a 70 to 80 per cent chance of below-average rainfall for eastern Australia, extending dry conditions that have set in over much of the region in November, according to the latest climate outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology.

"We are seeing a turn in the weather," said Robyn Duell, a senior climatologist at the bureau, noting that much of the country had an exceptionally wet winter. "If we see a hot December, it will raise the risk [of bushfires] because there's a lot of vegetation around."

The outlook for heightened fire threats matches forecasts made in August that Australia's second-wettest winters on record would lead to a delayed start to the bushfire season before conditions ramped up.

Read the Melbourne Age story - “'Turn in the weather': Dry, hot start to summer points to fire season ramping up.”